A Mother's Dilemma Part 1

Please, God, let him telephone me now. Mom is waiting outside, and dad is on his way to the hospital, but I need to talk to him. The choice for them is clear. I desperately need to talk to him. Oh Lord please, please, please, just this one time, listen to my prayer. He will understand my dilemma, maybe, oh please, just maybe he will agree with me too. She is a part of both of us. She is our creation. She is our life, our reason, our love, our everything. I have carried her in my womb for seven months. For two hundred and thirteen full days, she has been a part of me, and not a moment has passed in the last eighteen million, four hundred, and ten thousand seconds that I have not thought about her. But why am I sitting and calculating that now? People listen to songs, or some even sleep, when they are tensed. I, on the other hand, do mathematics. Getting the mathematics degree was truly the best option for me.

Oh no! Please don’t get distracted! I have a major decision to make. And he, who had promised to “be my lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, from [that] day forward, in sickness and in heath, until death do us part”, is not here. I can’t believe that he would abandon me in such a situation. Oh, but why am I complaining? I knew what I was getting myself into, marrying an army man. Nothing is above his country for him- not even he, himself. I can’t call him, and I must wait until he has network coverage and a safe ground, so that he can contact telephone me. But a decision has to be made. And it must be made right away. I cannot wait for him. I need to do this alone. I need to do this for both of us.

But will he agree with me? I married him at a tender age of twenty three, when we were both young, and in the last ten years, we have learnt to accept each other’s the flaws and forgive the mistakes of the other. But am I making a mistake now? It took five years for us to decide that we are ready for a child, and another five to successfully conceive one. And, now that I am so close to meeting her, I don’t want to lose her. I cannot afford to lose her. Ten years! For ten years of my life, I have been yearning for this, and God wants to take this away from me too? What, what did I ever do to you? I attended church every Sunday, fed the homeless, volunteered at the old-age home … can’t all these virtues cover up for my past life’s sins? If not mine, then can’t my husband’s? He is a soldier! Even at this moment he is forced to stay away from us, because of his duty towards our country! If that isn’t virtuous, what is?

Thirty-three years. God, I have lived thirty-three years of my life. If, today, I want to make one decision for the brighter future of my unborn daughter, then why am I being questioned so much? Who are they to question a mother? I have always been a very determined woman, and it has been my determination which had allowed me to strive for excellence in every role that I played: I was a good daughter, a brilliant student, a loyal wife, and now, I want to prove that I can be a sacrificial, self-less mother also. I have ticked all that there is to achieve on my bucket list- all, except for one. And as determined as I am, I want to achieve that too. And with this decision, I will be able to do it: to live and to die for my child. I have lived the past seven months only and only for her, and now, I must die for her.

“Mrs. Perez?”

Huh?!? Yes, that is me. Being called out by the slender, hour-glass shaped woman, with a clinically monotonous, soft voice, made me stand up with a jerk, and I am regretting it now, due to a sudden sharp pain in my upper right quadrant. Anyway, now there is no other option, but to follow her to the doctor’s room. Hospital colors have always repelled me. This lady’s baby-pink dress, whose shade was at-least three shades lighter than my nail’s color, was possibly the only color in this room, apart from the navy-blue of my maternity wear, whose exact length is something that I am not aware of, since my bump obstructs my view of my legs. Maternity clothes companies have the perspective that just because I am pregnant, I must now want to look like a sack of potatoes. But enough of lamenting about fashion senses, right now, I need to channel focus my entire energy in persuading the man behind the beige sliding doors to save my daughter.